Oil prices may have stormed back into the headlines by crossing the ominous $100 a barrel threshold in recent weeks. But while this has happening the world’s largest oil and gas companies have been banging the drum for an altogether less newsworthy fuel–natural gas.

ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell and now BG Group have been arguing that significant changes are afoot in the unglamorous world of natural gas that could have a big impact on patterns of energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and the balance of power in volatile energy markets.

The big driver of this shift is supply. Energy companies have done a remarkable job in recent years of finding vast quantities of natural gas, possibly adding more than a hundred years of supply of the fuel.

A boom in production of natural gas trapped in shale rock has already transformed the fortunes of the U.S. Just a few years ago, North America was grimly looking at the prospect of growing dependence on foreign gas. Now it’s sitting on so much of the stuff that people are seriously discussing export projects.

In other parts of the world, notably Australia and southeast Africa, new projects are starting and new discoveries being made that will be feeding growing Asian markets by the middle of this decade.